Leaked documents show a long-term professional relationship between a Moscow-based law firm co-founded by a Russian politician and Nicos Chr. Anastasiades & Partners, the law firm founded by former Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades. The companies referred and represented common clients since the 1990s and as recently as 2018.
Key Findings:
- Cyprus’ former President Nicos Anastasiades’ law firm served as the Cyprus office for a Moscow-based Andrey Makarov & Alexander Tobak law firm
- Documents reveal close ties between the two, as well as Alexander Tobak’s visit to the presidential palace when Anastasiades was in power
- Makarov is a politician sanctioned by the EU in 2022, and a supporter of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin
- Transparency International said connections with politically exposed persons raises concerns over conflicts of interest
Andrey Makarov & Alexander Tobak law firm was established by Russian parliamentarian Andrey Makarov, a member of the ruling United Russia party that supports Vladimir Putin, and Russian lawyer Alexander Tobak. Makarov was sanctioned by the European Union in 2022, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Makarov visited Cyprus in May 1994, when Russian president Boris Yeltsin was privatizing Soviet state-owned enterprises, a policy that produced a new class of Russian businessmen now commonly known as oligarchs. Anastasiades, then an MP for Democratic Rally – DISY, accompanied the Russian lawmaker to a meeting with then Speaker of the House of Representatives Alexis Galanos.
Leaked documents from the Limassol-based MeritServus financial services company show that by March 1997, Anastasiades’ law firm was referring a MeritServus client to the Makarov & Tobak law firm.
Cyprus Confidential was a global investigative journalism collaboration led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and Paper Trail Media. Journalists reviewed 3.6 million leaked files from six Cypriot financial service providers, including MeritServus.
“Thank you for your letter,” read a message to a client signed by a former partner in the Anastasiades law firm. “We would highly recommend you as Lawyers in Moscow the Law Firm of Messrs A. Makarov and A. Tobak”
Several letters signed by law firm partner, Stathis Lemis, from 2002 to 2005 found in the MeritServus leak, list both Makarov and Tobak as “consultants” of Nicos Chr. Anastasiades & Partners. The same documents describe the Makarov & Tobak law firm as the “Moscow Office” for the Anastasiades’ law firm.
A 2018 correspondence about a shared client contains a reference letter signed by Tobak, the Moscow law firm’s senior executive partner. At the bottom of that letter, the Nicos Chr. Anastasiades law firm is listed as the “Cyprus office.”
“It’s a fact that there has been cooperation with the law firm of Messrs Makarov & Tobak since 1993, as it happens with many other firms in other countries,” Anastasiades said in an emailed response to reporters’ questions.
Managing partner Stathis Lemis said the Nicos Chr. Anastasiades & Partners law firm continues to work with legal services providers abroad in accordance with its requirements, adding that “from February 2022, when the conflict in Ukraine started, our firm strictly follows all European Union guidelines on sanctions. Any other understanding or interpretation on this is baseless and unfounded.” He did not clarify if current partners include the Moscow law firm.
Neither Makarov or Tobak responded to questions sent to the law firm.
“Silent Partner”
Nicos Anastasiades’ served as a lawmaker from 1981 to 2013 when he was elected President of the Republic of Cyprus, a position he held for 10 years in total after being re-elected in 2018.
As a member of the parliament he maintained his law office — a common practice among sitting members of the Cypriot parliament who often continue their professional activity.
A YouTube video uploaded in November 2012 – months before he was elected president – shows an apparently incoherent Anastasiades introducing Makarov as one of his “good friends and associates from Russia”.
In June 2013, Anastasiades had a scheduled dinner at the Presidential Palace with Tobak and Russian oligarch Alexander Abramov, a client of Nicos Chr. Anastasiades & Partners, according to the presidential agenda shared by Makarios Drousiotis, who served as an advisor to the former president from 2013 to 2014. Also in attendance were two of the law firm’s partners, Stathis Lemis and Theophanis Philippou.
Anastasiades transferred his shares in the law firm to his two daughters and his partners Lemis and Philippou shortly before assuming his presidential duties. Nonetheless, during his presidency he maintained an office in the Limassol building owned by the law firm.
“The office, which I maintained on the property, is located on the 4th floor where no one else or service of the law firm is accommodated,” Anastasiades told reporters. He added: “The few visits I made to the premises were either on Saturday or Sunday, in order to meet with citizens who, due to the heavy workload, I was unable to meet at the Presidential Palace.”
The former president also claimed that he was a “silent partner” in the law firm from the time he was elected the head of DISY in 1997.
“All of my time was devoted to my party and political duties,” he wrote. It is completely arbitrary and malicious to assert that the retention of space on the law firm’s property constituted exercise or involvement in the law firm’s business,” he wrote.
He nonetheless continued to receive dividends from the law firm and affiliated companies as a “silent partner,” including €430,661 in 2011 and €377,000 in 2012 – which accounted for over 80 percent of his income at the time, according to asset declarations.
“What you do not realize is that a silent partner is entitled to dividends for his participation in a company, even if he is not actively involved in the company’s activities,” he replied.
In a 2019 interview, Anastasiades stated that his “contribution to the law firm” was limited to “the participation in business fora to promote our law firm’s operations.” He also claimed that “he never set foot at the law office since 1997,” when he was elected president of DISY.
Anastasiades’ relationship with the Kremlin has stirred controversy.
In October 2012, then DISY chairman Anastasiades and United Russia’s supreme council chairman Boris Gryzlov reached a “strategic cooperation” agreement between the two political parties. In February 2015, then President Anastasiades traveled to Moscow, where an agreement was signed, allowing Russia’s warships to use Cypriot ports.
Makarov has been a member of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, in every single convocation from 1994 to date, except one. He also served as chairman of Russia’s Chess Federation between 1994 and 1997. In February 2022, the day after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the European Union imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on Makarov, who had voted to ratify a so-called treaty between Russia and the occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Law firms cooperating across borders is standard business practice, but if “connected to politically exposed persons, this raises concerns such as potential conflict of interests, influence peddling and other risks,” said Eka Rostomashvili and Maira Martini of advocacy group Transparency International in an emailed statement.
The anti-corruption experts said that most countries have laws in place to address these issues.
In 2021 Cyprus’s parliament introduced a self-regulating code of ethics related to transparency, stating that MPs must disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest related to their personal or private affairs. Until now, Cypriot lawmakers are not prohibited from continuing their private practice while serving in public office.
Associate professor Aristoteles Constantinides at the University of Cyprus stressed the need for strict enforcement and constant monitoring of the implementation of the ethics code to achieve its objective, and underlined the role of the press and civil society in doing so.
Parliament is now discussing the introduction of more advanced regulations for MPs to declare potential conflicts of interest.